Description
Book SynopsisIn 1812, Napoleon launched his fateful invasion of Russia. Five decades later, Leo Tolstoy published War and Peace, a fictional representation of the era that is one of the most celebrated novels in world literature. The novel contains a coherent (though much disputed) philosophy of history and portrays the history and military strategy of its time in a manner that offers lessons for the soldiers of today. To mark the two hundredth anniversary of the French invasion of Russia and acknowledge the importance of Tolstoy''s novel for our historical memory of its central events, Rick McPeak and Donna Tussing Orwin have assembled a distinguished group of scholars from diverse disciplinary backgroundsliterary criticism, history, social science, and philosophyto provide fresh readings of the novel.
The essays in Tolstoy On War focus primarily on the novel's depictions of war and history, and the range of responses suggests that these remain inexhaustible topics of debate
Trade Review
Tolstoy on War offers readers the results of an international conference held in April 2010 at the United States Military Academy at West Point.. The audience consisted primarily of cadets who had studied the novel and who had already 'wrestled with [Tolstoi's] take on their deadly, idealistic profession' (2)..In all, the editors have done an excellent job, providing introductory and concluding comments that frame the dozen essays, while contributing their own original research.
-- Kathleen Parthé * Slavic Review *
McPeak and Orwin bring together twelve essays on Tolstoy's War and Peace to mark the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's invasion of Russia and the Battle of Borodino. Each chapter in some way touches on at least one the novel's most prevalent contradictions (e.g., war and peace; freedom and determinism; fiction and nonfiction), spanning the disciplines of literary criticism, history, and philosophy.... The volume has thematic consistency and a wide disciplinary appeal, bringing history and literary criticism together in a study of a classic of world literature.
* Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
by Donna Tussing OrwinChapter 1. Tolstoy on War, Russia, and Empire
by Dominic LievenChapter 2. The Use of Historical Sources in War and Peace
by Dan UngurianuChapter 3. Moscow in 1812: Myths and Realities
by Alexander M. MartinChapter 4. The French at War: Representations of the Enemy in "War and Peace"
by Alan ForrestChapter 5. Symposium of Quotations: Wit and Other Short Genres in "War and Peace"
by Gary Saul MorsonChapter 6. The Great Man in "War and Peace"
by Jeff LoveChapter 7. "War and Peace" from the Military Point of View
by Donna Tussing OrwinChapter 8. Tolstoy and Clausewitz: The Duel as a Microcosm of War
by Rick McPeakChapter 9 The Awful Poetry of War: Tolstoy's Borodino
by Donna Tussing OrwinChapter 10. Tolstoy and Clausewitz: The Dialectics of War
by Andreas Herberg-RotheChapter 11. The Disobediences of War and Peace
by Elizabeth D. SametChapter 12. Tolstoy the International Relations Theorist
by David A. WelchWar and Peace at West Point
by Rick McPeak
Notes
Works Cited
List of Contributors
Index
